Home Sweet Home
by schweinsty
Summary: It's hard to find a home, sometimes, when you're on the run.


**Home Sweet Home**

The apartment in Stockholm is worse than the one in Gdansk but better than the one Bristol, so that's something.

It's small and square and has one tiny bedroom in one corner, a tinier bathroom next to it, and a futon in the front room next to the stove.

"Home sweet home." Nick drops his duffle on the futon, gives it a look, and decides he'll have to scrub it down before he even thinks of sitting on it, let alone sleeping.

"The shop down the street won't have soap," comes, suddenly, from the bathroom, along with the sound of clothes being unzipped. "But the lady next door will tell you where to go."

It's been a long-ass day following a long-ass week in which Nick almost got killed on multiple occasions and almost got maimed even more, and he is not in the mood to socialize with his neighbors or wander around Stockholm in search of a grocery store. His ensuing thought process, however, doesn't get past 'Maybe with a sheet' before there's a loud "Gross! No! Go buy soap!" from the bathroom.

Because apparently the state of Nick's futon is of great import to his companion. Damn it.

Nick grumbles to himself as he fumbles on his jacket with fingers that weren't this clumsy an hour earlier. He can practically feel waves of smugness emanating from the bathroom, so he keeps his mouth shut and his mind blank so Cassie won't have anything to add before he leaves.

He takes a look back as he shuts the door behind him; the cramped, dingy walls lit by a lonely lightbult stare back. It could just as well be the apartment in Chicago or the house they squatted in in Tel Aviv for all it feels like home. Nick banishes the thought to the back of his mind (because comfort is irrelevant when you're hiding from Division, as long as you're safe), but it worms its way into his soul regardless and sours.

The neighbor, Naveeda, is halfway up the stairs and struggling with two paper bags and a baby in a sling when Nick starts down. She's more than happy to give him directions to a grocery store when he helps her up to the fourth floor, though Nick has to hide how much his muscles ache by the time they reach her landing. The adrenaline that's kept him and Cassie going since their place in Liverpool got hit is all of a sudden gone, and Nick feels the weight of running across several countries from Division while herding a psychic sixteen-year-old crash on his shoulders. His eyes ache, too, from lack of sleep, and when he rubs them with his fists it feels like he's got sand stuck underneath the lids. Nick just wants to fall asleep and wake up somewhere he can stay for the rest of his life.

But that's not going to happen, so he jogs for a couple seconds to get some adrenaline up and heads out into the Scandinavian dusk.

It is, for the record, fucking chilly.

It only takes about ten minutes, walking, either way, and Nick's not in the mood to linger. He picks up the soap, a couple of towels, and several cans of soup that appear to be on sale. He's almost out the door when he passes the makeup aisle and sees a box of some of that chalk for temporary hair color in purple. What the hell; not like Cassie's had a better week than he has.

Nick's feet are dragging by the time he climbs three flights of stairs back to their apartment, and he juggles the bag of groceries on his hip to grab his keys from his pocket-only to realize he never grabbed the keys off the kitchen table in the first place.

He knocks on the door and calls for Cassie twice, but she doesn't answer; sighing, he grabs one of his credit cards and slides it in next to the lock. God damn it. If someone sees him breaking into his apartment they might call the police, and if they run into the police then Division has a better chance of finding them, and that means packing up and running off before they've even spent a night in the place, and-

Oh.

When the door finally swings open, Nick's greeted with the smell of chicken noodle soup, Cassie's godawful singing, and the sight of all the pictures they carry with them pinned up on the wall facing the head of his futon.

Cassie's at the stove, stirring soup in a pot and bopping around with her headphones on, so Nick sets his bag down on the floor and walks over to the pictures and traces his finger over their edges.

There's him and Kira, Kira and Cassie, Cassie and Milo, whom she dumped shortly before they left Florence but still writes occasionally (and Nick pretends he doesn't know where she's going when she sneaks off to the post office), the picture of Cassie's mom they found in the rubble in Delhi, and, front and center, Nick and Cassie when he took her to the Coldplay concert (because he swore she'd have at least one good thing to remember from her adolescence), his arm around her shoulders, Cassie's arm outstretched as she took the selfie.

"I traded my stretchy bracelet for plates," Cassie says.

Nick doesn't jump in surprise, but it's close. His back stiffens and he looks at her-this scrawny, gangly kid whom he can still hook his chin over, who wears loud deodorant, takes thirty-minute showers, and couldn't find a decent taste in music with a bloodhound. His throat hurts.

"Thanks," he says, and, when she smiles, "They had some-hair stuff. Chalk. Thought you'd like some."

She crosses all three feet of the tiny room and tackles him with a hug, and Nick wraps his arms around her bony shoulders and finds home.


End file.
